If you were given free reign to create a brand new Transformers movie, how would you go about making it? Anything goes here. It doesn't have to be tied to the existing live action Bay movies, or even be live action, if you don't want it to. But it must be about the Transformers.

For me, having gone and better familiarized myself with more Generation 1 fiction, I think I'd want to make a movie that would pay tribute to the very first Transformers story: The four-issue limited series from Marvel Comics. Though, I would make a few changes for it to flow better and feel more like a movie than a comic book.

It would not be live action. It would be a completely motion capture CGI movie done in the animation style of such films as The Polar Express and Beowulf.

It would be set in the Reagan era United States, in the city of Portland, Oregon. Mount St. Hilary would be the volcano that the Ark crashed into. There would only be two main human characters: Buster Witwicky and his father "Sparkplug" Witwicky. Buster's girlfriend Jesse would also appear, but play a smaller role. No Spider-Man and no "O" for this, though.

The main Autobot characters would be Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Prowl, Ratchet, and Gears, with Ironhide, Huffer, Mirage, and the rest of the 1984 Autobot cast filling out the ranks of this team.

The main Decepticons would be Megatron, Ravage, Soundwave, Starscream, and Buzzsaw, with Thundercracker, Skywarp, Laserbeak, Rumble, and Frenzy playing smaller roles.

All characters would look G1-esque in design, sort of like Classics-style bodies. Though, being set in during the Reagan Administration would permit them to have 1980s altmodes. However, Megatron's altmode would be something more menacing than a gun. Maybe a tank or something.

It would start with the war set on Cybertron and quick overview of it. Then, at a point when the war has come to a stalemate, Cybertron would come under the threat of large astroids that threated to tear the planet apart. Optimus Prime would recruit a team of Autobots aboard the Ark starship to go destroy these asteroids before they'd impact with the planet. Megatron would catch wind of this plan and use it to his advantage, selecting a team of Decepticons to ambush the Autobots in space from their own warship, the Nemesis. Once the Autobot in the Ark destroy the asteroids and save Cybertron, the Decepticons attack them in their weakened state immediately after. The two ships would get farther and farther from Cybertron, until they wind up crash-landing on a distant, uninhabited, organic planet: Earth. The Ark hits a volcano, while the Nemesis seemingly disappears. The Autobots and Decepticons aboard the Ark go dormant for four million years, until they are awoken in 1984 by the eruption of Mount St. Hilary. Teletraan I rebuilds all of them, not knowing the differences between factions due to damage from the crash, and the Decepticons depart before the Autobots figure out what's going on.

The rest of it would play out similar to the comics. Buster and Jesse would be on a date at a drive-in, the Autobots go on a recon mission to find the Cons and learn more of Earth, the Cons attack the Bots at the drive-in, Bumblebee gets damaged and brought home by Buster to be fixed by Sparkplug, the Cons establish a base, Buster and Sparkplug meet and help out the Autobots, Sparkplug gets captured by the Cons, the Cons force Sparkplug to use his mechanical talents for their advantage, the Bots attempt to rescue him, Sparkplug is rescued, but reveals how he had to help the Cons become stronger. The Bots have by now suffered a great loss of energy. The Cons bring themselves to full power and launch a final assault on the Ark. The Bots are getting beaten badly, but then it is revealed that Sparkplug's enhancements were really acts of sabotage and the Cons feel great internal pain. Using their last bits of the energy, the Bots finish off the Cons with everything they have. Though, all are deactivated, but not killed (for sequel purposes).

This is just a base summary without the juicy details, so it's no surprise that it sounds kinda "meh" as is. However, there would be hints of a sequel involving Shockwave and the Dinobots interwoven into this plot, but they would be vague enough to be just fan nods should a sequel not get made. and there would be plenty of character development for the major robot characters during the more expressive events.

"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”-- C.S. Lewis

I would either choose one of the series and subtitle the movie as that and do it in total 3d cgi (not live action) or go back to the earliest stories like primus and the fallen and original primes. However, I would spend alot of time on the cgi development so that it was near photorealistic and had alot of memorable scenes and spend time on the humans (if it had any) so that they didn't look as toonish as say, transformers prime's humans, unless I just decided to go with that style for some reason like budget or something. Above choosing anything else though, I'd continue the story from the War For Cybertron videogame or Transformers Animated would be my top picks. If I did Transformers Animated it would be a continuation of the story after season 3 and for WFC I'd summarize the plot of the WFC game in the first 15 mins of movie, then let them show up on earth. If it was successful I might go to some more classical 2d animation techniques for another movie, drawn with the greatness of a few of the more high quality anime movies / series that have been out, and the story would probably be Beast Wars related, like maybe a prequel to BW or something.

"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”-- C.S. Lewis

You misunderstand.Not A beast wars movie, a beast wars style.Back in time, they all take on animal forms, but here's the catch... it's live action!Of course, the preference would be transmetal bodies, rather than actual flesh bodies

You misunderstand.Not A beast wars movie, a beast wars style.Back in time, they all take on animal forms, but here's the catch... it's live action!Of course, the preference would be transmetal bodies, rather than actual flesh bodies

Nice.

I bet you'd cast Liam Neeson as Primal, right?

"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”-- C.S. Lewis